


Mar Adam

by emanthony



Series: Mar Lavellan [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 09:23:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7216768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emanthony/pseuds/emanthony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The conclusion to the the Mar Lavellan tale. </p><p>"The fire was blazing hot and burning around them in licking white flames. Solas stood framed in a halo relief, face darkened in shadow, but eyes blazing supernatural blue. He was unhurt. Untouched. </p><p>He walked forward."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mar Adam

The fire was blazing hot and burning around them in licking white flames. Solas stood framed in a halo relief, face darkened in shadow, but eyes blazing supernatural blue. He was unhurt. Untouched. 

 

He walked forward.

 

Adam -- tall, brave, undeterred Adam -- stepped forward to meet him. “No,” he said. He lifted the bow he had in hand and pointed an arrow towards the man he’d been sworn to serve. He was one of Fen’Harel’s men, a roguish elf often draped in black. He _was_ one of Fen’Harel’s men. He belonged to Mar now, like so many others. Not even of the Inquisition -- just of Mar Lavellan, the one trying to save the world.

 

Solas lifted a hand.

 

“No,” Mar screamed, pushing forward. “Don’t!”

 

It was too late. Adam lit up into fire, just like everyone else. The charred corpses that laid at their feet were friend and foe alike. They had failed. Everyone -- everyone had fallen. Everyone had burned. Solas had killed everyone.

 

Adam choked and collapsed in a nightmarish burst of black, consumed so quickly by Solas’ magefire that he hadn’t even had the chance to look back at Mar before he was dead, before he was dust.

 

Mar screamed. He’d failed. He’d failed to stop Fen’Harel. He’d failed to save his men. He’d failed all of Thedas, because he hadn’t killed Solas. And now Solas would tear down the veil; the world was lost.

 

“You can’t be killed, can you?” Mar asked, voice hoarse, hands shaking. “All that we’ve done hasn’t hurt you. Because you can’t be killed.”

 

“Not like this, no, I cannot be killed,” Solas said, voice even. His eyes faded back to their crystal gray. He tilted his head.

 

“Even fire can’t hurt you,” Mar croaked. 

 

“Even fire,” Solas agreed.

 

“I won’t stop,” Mar said, stepping forward. He rushed forward, until he grabbed the wolf’s fur on Solas’ lapel. “Even after you rip apart the world and there’s nothing left. I won’t stop until you kill me, Solas.”

 

“Oh, vhenan,” Solas said, and there was something in the way he spoke the Elvish, soft and concerned. He closed a hand around Mar’s fist, gently, palm warm but not overhot, despite the fire surrounding them on all sides. “Da’len, Mar. I cannot be killed --” He squeezed his fist. “But neither can you.”

 

There was a great roaring in Mar’s ears as he went deaf to everything except what Solas had said.

 

_ I cannot be killed, but neither can you. _

 

Mar’s eyes, wide and inky black, traced Solas’ face. Then, when the roaring of his mind rushed away, he found himself asking, “What have you done?”

 

“It’s been done for some time,” Solas said. “Since before you woke up at elvhenan.”

 

“You’ve made me like you,” he said, breathless.

 

“You’re like me now, yes. Ageless. No mortal death will come to you, not like this. Not with flames or age…” Solas tilted his head and reached out, with his free hand, to stroke the high point of Mar’s cheekbone. “It was necessary, to keep you through the fall of the veil.”

 

“No,” Mar said. And then, breathlessly, words rushing out in frantic understanding, “This is why you let me leave. Why you didn’t care about the army I amassed. Because after everything is done, after you won, you knew I would have to come back to you. Because you changed me. Because I’m like you. Because we would be the only ones left.”

 

Solas’ thumb pressed to the side of Mar’s lips and his hand dropped away. He said nothing. Because it had all been right. 

 

Mar pushed away. His knees were weak and so he fell to them. 

 

“Da’len. It will be alright,” Solas said, crouching beside him, lifting a hand to stroke through his hair gently, kindly. “Let’s get out of the fire."

 

* * *

 

 

A half year earlier -- Mar was finally strong enough to leave Solas’ home.

 

“Take more men,” Solas said. “I’m offering them in service to you.”

 

“No,” Mar hissed. “One. You can send one spy with me, Fen’Harel, but that is all that you get.”

 

They were standing downstairs in elvhenan, Solas’ home, in a gallery of white marble and rich leather. Sounds of songbirds drifted in and out of the space, distracting, peaceful, and frustrating. This place was perfect and every moment Mar spent inside the walls, he felt himself growing attached. To the great, beautiful bath, to the giant sweeping bed where he slept alone, gratified to know that Solas was cramped elsewhere, wishing for his affection. Mar loved the soft velvet magerobes he had been given. He loved the library, with lofted nooks against the windows to read. And the enormous kitchen, filled every day with an abundance of fruits and vegetables of the garden. The ancient elves were vegetarian, Solas had eventually explained. It was why he ate so little at Skyhold, with the majority of rations being dried meat.

 

Being in this beautiful sanctuary was poisoning Mar. Even now, it was hard to raise his voice, to disturb the twitter of birds. 

 

“You refuse to let me leave alone, so I will take just one of your men.”

 

Solas sighed, deeply, and conceded. He sent Mar off with a rogue elf, Adam. He was extraordinarily tall and quiet, but not in a way that suggested servitude, no. Adam wasn’t a servant; he was a spy.

 

They rode away from Solas exactly two months after Mar had been brought to his home, unconscious and dying. They sat astride two horses of pure black, and each moved with remarkable gait. Mar was in the front, which was probably unwise. 

 

About four hours into their trip, he slowed to a stop. He shot Adam a look. They’d yet to say a single word to one another. “I don’t know where to go.”

 

Adam quirked one brow. “Where is it that you were heading?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Adam’s silence spoke volumes.

 

“I need to find --” Dorian? Sera? Cassandra, the Divine? The Inquisition had been crippled by politics and undoubtedly his absence had done it no good, either. But the core would be there -- if he knew where to look. “Minrathous.”

 

Adam kicked his horse farther by a few feet, until he was side to side with Mar. He leveled him with a look that, if he were a mage, would have iced down his limbs. “You would like to walk as a wanted elf, a confidant of the false Divine, in opposition to all of Tevinter -- directly into the capital. On horseback. With a single guard.”

 

Mar lifted his head. “Yes.”

 

“I wasn’t aware that this was a suicide mission,” Adam said.

 

“Like you could have said no?” Mar grit his teeth. “Opposed the great Fen’Harel?”

 

“Yes. We aren’t his slaves. We are elves fighting for true freedom from the tyranny of men.” Mar rolled his eyes but Adam carried on. “I refuse to die at your side. My apologies, your worship --”

 

“Don’t call me that,” Mar said.

 

“-- But you aren’t worth my life. I will not die for you. If you lead us into a situation that calls for it, I will leave.”

 

“Very well,” Mar said. “I agree to your terms.”

 

Two birds with one stone, then. He’d find Dorian and lose the spy that undoubtedly had planned to report pertinent information back to Solas. It would give Mar a fighting chance to save the world. 

 

Hopefully.

 

* * *

 

 

Mar threw up a barrier and an explosion of fire danced across it. “Fuck me,” he grunted, darting behind a wall.

 

“Haven’t the time,” Adam said, already crouched back there. He hadn’t left Mar to his suicide mission like he said he would. He twisted his body around the corner and let loose another arrow, which hit its mark perfect and true. The attacking mage fell with a final thwack.

 

Mar rolled his eyes, but an involuntary smile pulled at him anyway. “Not what I meant.”

 

The corner of Adam’s mouth twitched in a smile. 

 

More fire.

 

Mar threw up another barrier and felt the strain physically pulling at his limbs. “Shit. We’re trapped.”

 

Adam held his last arrow in hand. “This was possibly my shortest mission ever. Less than a day.” He slid the arrow into his bow. “At least Fen’Harel had the good mind to send someone else to die in his stead.”

 

When Adam turned the corner to launch his last attack, Mar heard a voice he’d missed dearly.

 

“Sweet Maker. Stop, stop, stop!”

 

Mar gasped and jumped at Adam just as his arrow launched, sending it flying askew, into the brick of a nearby home. Adam gave Mar a wild look just as one of the attacking Tevinter mages shouted, “Arms down! Magister Pavus!”

 

Everything stopped and suddenly. Fires burnt out and electricity in the air dissipated instantly.

 

Mar shoved himself by Adam and into the open, voice cracking with emotion. “Dorian!” Mar’s blackish eyes welled almost immediately. Dorian stood there, staff in hand, an armed guard of four surrounding him on all sides, and Mar’s attackers were sweaty and bleeding to one side. And dead; quite a few dead.

 

A guard grabbed Mar’s arm, jerking him away from Dorian before he could quite literally fling himself at his friend and the recently appointed Magister Pavus. Dorian handed his staff to a different guard and crossed his arms. “Really, Ambrose. You believe that this tiny underfed Dalish could hurt me?”

 

“Could have a knife, ser,” Ambrose, the guard, said. His voice was like gravel and his eyes were quite dark. 

 

“Release him,” Dorian ordered, and Mar pulled his arm away. Dorian clucked his tongue and approached. The soft leather he wore was dyed red, matching the red and angular jewels fastened in his ears and around his neck. “You know, Ser Lavellan, you’ve quite a knack for inconveniently-timed trouble.”

 

Mar looked Dorian up and down and reached up to wipe the blood off his own nose, very aware that he was basically shattered while Dorian was basically stunning. “You were at a party?”

 

“I’m always at a party, because I’m Dorian of House Pavus,” he said, and he smirked.

 

There was the sound of a fist meeting a face from behind them. Mar whirled around to see Adam and another guard facing off. “Stop!” Mar and Dorian said at once. 

 

“He’s got weapons,” the guard said, keeping Adam’s arms pinned at his side. The look Adam gave Mar was one of pure malice; he knew precisely who to blame for being manhandled by ‘Vints, and it wasn’t, for once, a Magister’s fault. 

 

“I’d hope so,” Mar lied, easily, “He’s my bodyguard. Let him go.” Adam pulled free and straightened his now torn and bloody clothing, silently.

 

“Begging your pardon, ser,” Ambrose said, stepping forward. “Who are you?”

 

Dorian snorted. “Oh, Ambrose.” He motioned once, a simple flick of his hand, and the entire group fell into line, and began the walk back to what Mar presumed was Dorian’s carriage. “This is Mar Lavellan. He's the Inquisitor.”

 

* * *

The next several months were spent gathering forces. The Inquisition was at hand, still, but a sizable number of men that joined up with Mar were unpledged; simply opponents of Fen’Harel. 

 

Mar never could have anticipated working so closely with such a large number of Tevinter mages. It was awkward, really, because Mar hadn’t had much interaction with ‘Vints aside from Dorian, and he repeatedly made the mistake of assuming everyone would be just as great, friendly, and warm.

 

They were not.

 

The vast majority of Tevinter men that joined the opposition were icy and cruel; their desire to stop Fen’Harel was mostly a result of their hatred of elves. The name of Inquisitor held little rank in Tevinter, because it had -- officially in a political spectrum -- been completely uninvolved with the events two years previous, with the mad Magister Corypheus or the mad Magister Alexius. 

 

It meant being cornered more than once by, well, bullies. It also meant that Mar got to punch someone with his new stone fist for the first time. 

 

The man, wearing a hood, with a squashed and angry face, came at Mar snarling. He collapsed to the ground so quickly after being hit by Mar’s heavy rock hand that, briefly, Mar thought the man was going for his legs. He jumped back a few times, nervously, but the man didn’t move.

 

Out cold.

 

Adam slinked from the shadows as he often did. “First time I’ve seen you actually use it.”

 

“I’m right-handed,” Mar said, looking down at the black stone of his palm. 

 

“May I see?”

 

Mar looked up into Adam’s face. He nodded and held his hand out for inspection. The thick curls atop Adam’s head masked his face as he turned the cold stone over in his hand. “He did this for you. Quite a gift.”

 

“It came with a very large string.”

 

Adam looked up, eyes gone round. 

 

“A tall string. With dark skin.” Mar glanced down at the hand that still held his own. “And big hands. And some kind of middle ages gothic aesthetic. We’re not in a Blight, you know.”

 

Adam’s fingers twitched. “I’m not a string.”

 

“You’re his spy.”

 

“I’m here to protect you.”

 

“Ah, so we’re still going with the bodyguard lie, then.”

 

“It’s no lie.” Adam slowly lowered Mar’s hand and stepped back. “Fen’Harel cares for you. Deeply. He only wished me to keep you from harm the best I am able. I don’t understand why you’re amassing an army to kill someone who loves you.”

 

“And I don’t understand why you follow someone who wants to lead you to your death.”

 

Adam’s brows pinched together. “That’s not --”

 

“Two servants are squabbling in the hall,” a terse, Tevinter-accented voice cut through them both. “Look at them. _Elves_.”

 

Mar grabbed the sleeve of Adam’s robe. “Come with me.” When Adam remained rooted in place, Mar tugged. “Please.”

 

Adam sighed and they left, up the stairs to Mar’s private room in Dorian’s estate. 

 

“Elves will not perish when the Veil falls,” Adam said. "Fen'Harel has assured us of that." He passed through the door and Mar closed it behind them, swathing them in the dim windowless room. A single candle remained lit in the fireplace.

 

“All mortal beings of this realm will perish,” Mar said. "So most -- almost all -- elves."

 

“You call him a liar. You call Fen’Harel a liar.”

 

“That’s what he does, you fool. He’s Fen’Harel. He’s literally the god of tricks --” Mar folded hands into his hair and paced the room, while Adam stood at the foot of the bed, unmoving. “He says something to make you act a certain way -- to do his bidding, without even knowing it --”

 

Adam crossed his arms, expression flat.

 

“But he’s full of shit. He likes me --” an involuntary laugh bubbled out from Mar, and he threw his hands up. “He likes me because I knew. I knew all along that he was full of shit, and he liked that.”

 

“He loves you,” Adam said. 

 

Mar stopped. He turned to Adam. “I will not let a man or elf or anyone take this world from me.”

 

“He’s a god,” Adam then said, voice nearly condescendingly patient.

 

“Yes, well, I’m the Herald of Andraste!” Mar snapped.

 

Adam’s eyebrows lifted.

 

“I won’t let him do what he wants, even if he loves me. Even if he’s not lying, and he and I would get to walk into this new world where elves rule and he’s some great king and I’m his -- what, his --”

 

“Lover?” Adam supplied.

 

Mar deflated and dropped down to sit at the edge of his bed. After a few beats of silence, Adam sat down beside him. “We haven’t. I won’t.”

 

“I see.”

 

“You can leave, Adam. I’m safe here. Go back to him. It’s not really safe for you here, anyway, as an elf or as one of his men. If someone were to find out...”

 

Silence stretched for a moment and Mar looked out across his room. It wasn't decadent -- though he could have easily had one of the many gigantic guest suites. He wanted to be near the back exit of the Pavus estate for obvious reasons. The room had little decoration aside from a thick woven rug and the ornately carved headboard, featuring a number of swooping birds and a variety of flowers. It matched the bird and flower carving at the center of the door, too. Mar liked it there. Quiet, dark, and simple. He really didn't get enough _simple_. “I’ll stay,” Adam said, voice cutting through Mar's thoughts. “As one of your men. If you'd like.”

 

Mar looked up, blond hair filtering across his vision. “What?”

 

“I’ll fight with you.”

 

“What?" When he realized he'd already asked that, Mar added, "Why?”

 

“Fen’Harel fights for elves, but I think you fight for everyone. Don’t you?”

 

Mar stared at him, struck still. His eyes tracked across Adam’s face; the sharpness of his cheekbones, the deep v of his cupid’s bow. The swell of his lower lip. The squareness of his long and angular jaw.

 

Suddenly Adam stood, backing towards the door. “I should go.”

 

“Stay,” Mar said.

 

Adam bounced from foot to foot and edged closer to the door. “I --”

 

“I mean, here. As one of my men. Stay.” Mar stood up.

 

Adam nodded carefully. “I will.” He reached behind himself, hand closed around the ornate brass door knob.

 

Mar stepped forward and dropped his heavy stone hand against the door, holding it closed, and he leaned up towards Adam’s face. “And then stay in here, too. With me.”

 

“Oh.”

 

On the tips of his toes, Mar leaned up, and then smiled when Adam jerked away, nearly hitting his head against the wood of the door. Adam placed a hand on Mar’s sternum and pushed, gently, spreading distance between them. 

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Inquisitor.”

 

“Dareth shiral, lethallin.”

 

* * *

“This wasn’t,” Mar panted, “what I had imagined would happen,” he gasped for air, “when I found the final orb.”

 

Adam’s hands slid up Mar’s thighs, onto his ass, and pulled him down into a rhythm, so that their cocks slid together inside their robes. He grunted in response; Mar talked too much. Best not encouraged, so he didn't reply.

 

“Ah,” Mar pressed his hands against the cold dungeon floor and ground down atop Adam. It figured that when he finally got Adam in bed -- it wouldn’t be in a bed at all. No, it was with blood spilt on the ground, with the smell of ash and spark in the air, with an army outside, celebrating the victory they’d won. “Can I suck you off?” Mar asked, voice a whisper against Adam’s mouth.

 

Adam’s response was almost immediate. “No,” he said. “I want to kiss you.”

 

Mar’s thighs squeezed around Adam’s and he whined, lust lacing through him. “Just want to shut me up --” he said. 

 

“Yeah, and it’s not fucking working.”

 

Mar laughed and the sound was swallowed by Adam’s mouth. They scrambled to unfasten the fronts of their clothes, and when Adam’s thick hand squeezed around him, Mar cried out. That sound, too, was muffled. They rocked together. 

 

“I’m going to come,” Mar said.

 

“Open your eyes,” Adam said. He pressed their foreheads together and squeezed his hand around them both.

 

Mar snapped his eyes open and then gasped when he came, the feeling sluicing through him with sudden force. “Maker -- Adam.” Whiteness blinked around his vision, but he saw Adam’s eyes. Soft and warm and brown. He shivered as Adam continued to stroke, until he came himself.

 

It left them both breathless and quiet against the dungeon floor. 

 

Mar kissed Adam again. A kind, innocent kiss; one immediately returned. And then they both rolled over, onto their sides. Mar sighed and blinked slowly, tracking Adam’s face with a sleepy curiosity. 

 

“It’s been months. Three… You haven’t even been alone in a room with me.”

 

“We were on a mission.”

 

“To find the orbs,” Mar said. “So?”

 

Adam looked away. “Duty comes first.”

 

“I mean, I think technically I came first. You're very generous.”

 

Adam snorted and Mar laughed. “I thought, maybe if I helped you win -- if we gathered all of the orbs of the Elven Pantheon; artifacts required to kill Solas… I thought to myself, if I do that, and I still want him then, then I would kiss you.”

 

“One hell of a kiss.”

 

Adam laughed now, too, and pushed a hand through his hair. 

 

“You made a promise with yourself that if you found all the orbs, that you could bang your boss, because, hey -- mission done. That it?”

 

“Mostly.”

 

“So you decided the very minute after defeating the guardian dragon, and the very minute the orb was securely in the Inquisition’s hands -- to jump my bones. Before we've even left the dungeon. Where anyone could walk in -- probably did.” His party -- Sera, Dorian, and Bull -- were all used to it, at least.

 

“It was just a kiss. You were the one that got handsy.”

 

“I regret nothing.”

 

“Yeah,” Adam reached out and stroked a hand through the hair fallen in front of Mar’s face, sliding a thumb along Mar's bottom lip. “I too regret nothing.”

 

* * *

But it hadn’t worked.

 

The Elven orbs held power. Mar knew that much. All of the research and all of the experience pointed towards the same thing. The orbs held power. It gave Corypheus tremendous power. It would be enough to stop Solas, theoretically. The orbs could, perhaps, awaken the other elf gods. But that was kind of a fifty-fifty shot, even if it worked, because the other gods would undoubtedly hate Solas and yet still undoubtedly hate the world with the veil, too. 

 

Mar really just wanted to harness their power for himself, for his army. Grow his strength; bolster his forces. 

 

He would meet Solas on the battlefield with strength to match his own and Fen’Harel would fall and the world would be saved.

 

But it hadn’t worked.

 

The night before they were set to arrive on the outskirts of Tevinter, to catch Solas before he left on one of his final missions, Mar laid in a tent with Adam’s warm body beside his own. 

 

“You worry about seeing him again,” Adam said.

 

Mar’s silence was an obvious answer.

 

“Why?”

 

Mar slid deeper into the covers. “We were great friends, once.”

 

“Did you have feelings for him?”

 

Mar glanced up, through his lashes. 

 

“I won’t be jealous,” Adam said, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

 

“I suppose I did.”

 

“Do you still?” Adam lowered himself deeper into the covers, too. “I’ll only be a little jealous.”

 

Mar snorted. “No.” But sometimes he thought about that kiss. Their kiss. Among a garden of stone Qunari, when Mar was weak and delirious with pain. When Mar knew what Solas had lied about. He’d been so angry and betrayed. But maker, that _kiss_.

 

Adam leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on Mar’s forehead. “I trust you, Inquisitor.”

 

“I’ll kill him,” Mar said. “You can trust me to kill him.”

 

But it hadn't worked.

 

* * *

The fire was blazing hot and burning around them in licking white flames. Solas stood framed in a halo relief, face darkened in shadow, but eyes blazing supernatural blue. He was unhurt. Untouched. 

 

He walked forward.

 

Adam -- tall, brave, undeterred Adam -- stepped forward to meet him. “No,” he said. He lifted the bow he had in hand and pointed an arrow towards the man he’d been sworn to serve. He was one of Fen’Harel’s men, a roguish elf often draped in black. He /was/ one of Fen’Harel’s men. He belonged to Mar now, like so many others. Not even of the Inquisition -- just of Mar Lavellan, the one trying to save the world.

 

Solas lifted a hand.

 

“No,” Mar screamed, pushing forward. “Don’t!”

 

It was too late. Solas had killed Adam. Solas had killed everyone.  And Mar? 

 

_ Mar was hopelessly alive. _

**Author's Note:**

> The final chapter (for now). There's more to be told, now that the world has ended, but I'm not sure I can tell it in any coherent manner. Maybe one day.


End file.
